Dealers Angry With Hunt Auctions

The other day I had an interesting conversation with one of my local card shop dealers.  We were talking about the upcoming Philly Show scheduled for next weekend and I learned some inside stuff that I normally don’t hear.  It seems like almost every dealer is angry with Hunt Auctions.  My local shop owner has been in business for over 30 years and has been attending The Philly Show for almost as long.  After Hunt Auctions purchased the show in late 2008, they immediately raised the price of what it would cost for a dealer to setup.  According to the shop owner, he would normally pay around $700.00 to setup his booth.  Since he has a lot of stuff, he usually takes up two spots.  For next weekend’s show, it will cost $1,050.00 to setup.  He told me that I shouldn’t be surprised if half the dealers don’t show because of the price.  He also told me that Hunt Auctions doesn’t advertise the show.  I probably advertise more for the show here then they do at all.  Even though  MAB-Celebrity has been bringing in bigger name athletes like Mays, McCovey, and Fisk, they haven’t been making very much off of their sales of tickets.  One athlete got paid $25,000.00 to sign autographs for only 14 people that purchased tickets.  I’m no expert in math, but I can tell you that those 14 tickets didn’t amount to anything close to 25k.  It will be interesting to see how many dealers actually show next weekend.  This is why The Hobby is heading towards being 100% run over the internet.  I’ve talked about The Philly Show many times because its one of my favorite shows.  I’d hate to see it go down hill like this.

Update:

I also find it disturbing that they still don’t have a list of dealers who plan to attend on their website yet.  They usually have one up by now.  Perhaps they don’t want people knowing how few of them there will be.  MAB-Celebrity doesn’t have Cole Hamels on the list anymore but Hunt Auctions still does.